Friday, May 9, 2014

COMICCON 13 – AN OUTISDER’S PERSPECTIVE



COMICCON 13 – AN OUTISDER’S PERSPECTIVE
A picture of our writer Dave, the man who claims to be a Comic Con outsider at a video game competition.

In October of 2013, I attended my first ComicCon thanks to the kind donation of a spare press pass. Ultimately, I am probably the last person who should attend these events. I don’t follow any specific brand of science-fiction/comic/geek-icon. That’s not me feeling superior; I admire these attendees’ dedication to their favorite characters and intellectual properties. However, it wasn’t a complete waste of time – I learned quite a bit swimming through the costumed hoard.  For example:

THERE’S LITERALLY TOO MUCH GOING ON
Two girls with unregistered firearms

Prior to entering, I was given a nifty little souvenir book with a handy grid highlighting all the panels taking place during the course of the event with many of the more interesting ones overlapping with each other. Hard decisions would have to be made if I had the patience to sit in any of them. Luckily, I did not.

EVERYONE JUST MAKES THEMSELVES AT HOME
He wasn't here for the convention.  This is his normal outfit.

The younger fans attend these events in swarms and they’re ready to set up a makeshift shanty wherever I happen to need to be. The cell-phone charging stations are popular spots. Electricity was like water to the parched and they made sure they weren’t removing themselves from their encampment. But besides that, I was constantly tripping over some free-spirited twentysomethings in full costume sitting on the floor gleefully fingering their Magic decks.

NINTENDO WILL NEVER GO BROKE IF THEY JUST KEEP RELEASING POKEMON GAMES
Not endorsed by Nintendo of America
My time spent at CC coincided with the release of Pokemon X and Y for the Nintendo 3DS. And apparently the line for those games stretched way back out the door of the Jacob Javits and, likely, to Penn Station.  Good luck breaking through that queue.  My right to ingress and egress was not keeping them from collecting them all, all over again.

YOU WILL LOSE YOUR COMPANIONS
These are truly tourist who believe they can find stolen bike in NYC

A humongous amount of space packed to the gills with people dressed as Spidermen, Hulks and Chells is the perfect setting for losing your CC partner. Forget about any meeting places. You’ll never get to the rendezvous point in time before your partner’s boredom to get the upper hand or something interesting lures him or her away.  You can try calling, but your phone is probably long dead from all the pictures and tweeting and you’re not ‘in’ good enough with the denizens of the aforementioned charge stations.

PEOPLE WILL SPEND MONEY ON ANYTHING
That hug wasn't free. The Kitty wasn't the only thing saying hello either.

Mattel had their own little booth and were selling replica Hover Boards as seen in the enjoyable but still needless-complicated Back to the Future II. It was priced at a few hundred dollars and I’m assuming it doesn’t actually hover. “Who would purchase that?”, I thought to myself. And, of course, I see a couple of grown men carrying around those pricy boxes moments later. Ah, to have disposable income…

I’M INSANELY JEALOUS OF THIS GENERATION
Moments later some Mortal Kombat cosplayers swooped in and ripped their hearts of of their chest.

It’s bittersweet to see that no matter how “geeky” or “esoteric” one’s obsession may seem to outsiders, there are plenty of like-minded individuals who share the same enthusiasm. For example: male fans of “My Little Pony” in my day and age would be one-way ticket to a lifetime of mockery and torture. Nowadays, they have plenty of back-up and could make short work of any smart-mouthed detractor. But that’s just one of literally hundreds of groups anyone could comfortably belong. It’s inspiring to see that the hobby looked-down upon back when I was growing up has grown legs and become a behemoth, unaffected by the out-of-touch geezers who still think pejoratively calling someone a dork, geek or nerd is at all effective in breaking the spirit of these devotees.
And I am jealous. Though I was never as invested in the comics or science-fiction, I wouldn’t have minded hanging with these people, dressing in an elaborate costumes, cackling in excitement with every announcement of a new movie, book, video game, TV show or what-have-you. From what I saw of them, observing from the outside, they never stopped having the time of their lives. 


Written by
David Rerecich
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®